Sweet Berry Wine!!

Supposed to spit it out…..but no way Jose am I spittin’ this stuff out, it tastes like fruit!

Dr. Steve Brule

Today’s Story: Las Jaras Wines

Las Jaras Wines was founded in 2014 by winemaker Joel Burt and Hollywood comedian/director Eric Wareheim. Joel Burt, a winemaker at Domaine Chandon, was growing tired of making wines in a cookie-cutter, corporate, and mass-produced manner when he met Eric and the two realized they shared a passion for fine wine. The duo started planning their own wine label where they could produce wines in homage of “the old days” (think 1970s Napa) and Las Jaras was born. Joel describes their Cabernet “like a Dunn from the 80s, but way more approachable” and each wine in the portfolio is made largely using similar traditional techniques.

To achieve this style of wine, Joel remains very hands-off throughout the winemaking process. Las Jaras sources their fruit from various old vine vineyards, though most comes from Mendocino County. All fruit is hand-harvested and each variety goes through separate winemaking processes, all being hand-sorted at the crusher. Though each variety is vinified differently to best express that variety’s unique character, the long story short here is that Joel doesn’t add sulfur, the wines ferment with only natural yeasts, and bottling is accomplished with no fining or filtration. Today will be my first bottle from Las Jaras (and hopefully not my last) as I can appreciate wines made in traditional fashion with lower SO2 and alcohol content to better express the terroir.

Today’s Wine: 2018 Sweet Berry Wine

54% Carignan, 28% Zinfandel, 12% Charbono, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Valdiguie; 13% ABV

The 2018 Sweet Berry Wine is a beautiful medium purple in color and moderately opaque. This takes a little bit of time to open up, but once it does the nose showcases aromas of blueberry, raspberry, strawberry jam, licorice, sweet tobacco, cured meat, cinnamon, and violet. In the mouth, this Carignan-dominated blend shows notes of tart cherry, cranberry sauce, plum, wild underripe raspberry, baking spice, sweet tobacco, and green herbs. Overall both the nose and palate come off quite sweet, actually reminding me somewhat of the Martha Stoumen Zinfandel I reviewed not too long ago. The wine is medium-bodied with high acidity, low tannins (surprisingly), and a long finish.

Price: $35. All gimmicks aside, I think this is a great value particularly for those not familiar with a more “natural” way of making wine. I put “natural” in quotes because Joel Burt takes the word with a grain of salt when it comes up to describe his style, but it does fit. Pair this with honestly any type of food you want, but steer toward chicken, duck, pork, or beef brisket – and you can add barbecue to all of that minus the duck.

For a little comedy behind this wine, check out the video here. For a more serious note on the winemaking process for this bottling (they go into a lot of great detail) check out the fact sheet here.